With two weeks left in the quarter, what are the expectations for Q2 earnings? As the first chart shows, expectations for year-over-year S&P earnings growth ending on June 30 is down to 2.60%. If the financial companies are excluded, negative earnings growth is expected. <Click on chart for larger image> For all of 2013, earnings… Continue reading An Early Look At Q2 2013 Earnings Forecasts
<Click on chart for larger image> Bloomberg.com – Inflation at 53-Year Low Gives Bernanke Time to Press on With QE The lowest inflation since the brink of the Kennedy-era economic boom in the 1960s is buying time for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to press on with the central bank’s $85 billion in monthly… Continue reading Low Inflation And QE
The Wall Street Journal – Mortgage Rates Rise but Still a Bargain Rising mortgage rates are pushing up the cost of buying a home just as more local markets are seeing prices and sales climb, but economists say that unless rates move substantially higher the increase is unlikely to derail the U.S. housing recovery. Mortgage… Continue reading Mortgage Rates
The Wall Street Journal – Bond Investors Head for the Hills Signs of a stronger U.S. economy are rippling through the bond markets, sending investors and corporate leaders racing to prepare for higher interest rates. Investors have pulled money out of assets ranging from lower-rated corporate bonds to ultrasafe U.S. Treasurys in sums unseen since… Continue reading More Bond Hatred
Zero Hedge (Blog) – Goldman Slams Abenomics: “Positive Impact Is Gone, Only High Yields And Volatility Remain; BOJ Credibility At Stake” While many impartial observers have been lamenting the death of Abenomics now that the Nikkei – essentially the only favorable indicator resulting from the coordinated and unprecedented action by the Japanese government and its… Continue reading Goldman Slams Abenomics
The Financial Times – China cash crunch deepens as PBOC withholds funding The main reason for the tightness has been the central bank’s reluctance to pump liquidity in to the money market, wrongfooting banks that had expected Beijing would support them with large cash injections, as it had regularly done before. Signalling that the cash… Continue reading China
Business Insider – ANALYST: Now That The Cheap Money Is Coming To An End, We Can See The Bubble To End All Bubbles Each of the three significant financial bubbles of the last 30 years has been fuelled by the Fed keeping policy rates below the nominal growth rate of the economy for far too… Continue reading Bubble Talk
Yahoo Finance – ‘New Abnormal’ Is the New ‘New Normal’ – but What Is It? The New Normal is so last year; the New Abnormal is here. At least that’s how it seems based on how often this phrase is being applied to trends and phenomena that appear jarring or strange but which – the… Continue reading What Is The ‘New Abnormal?’
The Financial Times – The toxic legacy of the Greek crisis That Greece was the first to fall into trouble gave weight to the view that the crisis was fiscal First, inside the eurozone, the fact that Greece was the first country to fall into trouble gave weight to the view of northern Europeans that… Continue reading How Greece Started The Downfall In Europe
The Wall Street Journal- Emerging Markets Still Offer a Lure High-yielding assets could swoon if the Fed signals intentions to wind down its bond-buying program at the end of its two-day meeting on Wednesday. In recent years, low interest rates and easy-monetary policies in the developed world sent investors on a hunt for higher-yielding assets… Continue reading Investing In Emerging Markets
The QE debate in a nutshell (h/t Felix Salmon)
Comment Jim Bianco was on Bloomberg TV discussing the markets and the Federal Reserve. To view the interview click on the image above. To view any of our recent interviews click here. The Financial Times – Markets Insight: QE addiction may be hard to kick Financial markets are focusing on the potential exit from the… Continue reading Discussing The Federal Reserve